Digital advertisers spent 17.9 percent more on Black Friday and 13.8 percent more on Thanksgiving compared to last year, according to AdRoll's data. Its findings are based on cross-client numbers from 25,000 customers that have purchased products on hundreds of ad exchanges.

Advertising on the websites of premium publishers, such as The New York Times and Hearst properties, is three times as effective as it is on those of nonpremium publishers at boosting brand favorability and making users more likely to recommend products or services, according to a study by comScore.

James Murdoch, who took over as CEO of 21st Century Fox in July, doesn't see Netflix as a harbinger of a world without advertising. But he said the ways brands reach consumers through video has to change.

Pursway claims it can tap into Facebook and other social nets to target email, direct mail and social media messages to the family and friends of influential buyers. Its platform, launched today and dubbed Pursway Connect, borrows machine-learning technology from anti-terrorism systems to scan and identify patterns while analyzing billions of pieces of data from open sources.

AOL no longer seems to be in comeback mode. In fact, the company is on a pretty solid roll.
The company's global advertising revenue jumped 23 percent in Q4, finally putting the brand back on par with the robust growth being enjoyed by the online ad business as a whole.

Google is going after all the cookies, and the rest of the data-hungry world is worried that only crumbs will be left.
The search king is among a core group of Internet companies that see an opening as the Web evolves beyond cookie-based data tracking.